CONSIDERING THE FREE CHOICE MINERAL

Customer:

“I have been researching free choice mineral supplements and see the repeating theme that salt should be separate. I was going to purchase a “stress kit” from Advanced Biological Concepts but they use sodium selenite. I realize this is asking for your time on a 3-horse owner with little benefit to your company, but I would really like some information on the use of your free choice mineral with salt. Is the salt being included that big of a deal? I’m likely over thinking this whole thing, but horse people are nuts so I reserve the right to be psychotic! 🙂 We currently feed horse guard but the herd setup makes me dread feeding time.”

Answer by Ph.D. Equine Nutritionist, Kelsey Johnson Nonella:

Thank you for your question. We love to help all horse owners as we want to help ensure as many healthy horses as possible. Our essential mineral salt unfortunately also uses sodium selenite. The reason being the viability of selenium yeast is greatly decreased by the salt. Therefore, you lose the benefit of organic selenium when mixed with salt. Another reason why it isn’t ideal to use free choice mineral supplements with salts is horses intake can vary greatly due to weather. So if it is very cold your horse is going to consume much less mineral salt than if it is hot or they are sweating a lot.

While the most ideal way is providing your horse’s each a dose of Horse Guard, we understand that this isn’t possible for everyone and why we sell the free choice mineral. By providing the free choice mineral at least your horses are getting most minerals rather than none.

Another option you may consider is feeding Simplete. We have 15 horses ourselves and run them in herds of 4-6 horses. We have great success with hanging buckets(one for each horse in the pen) on the fence four horse lengths apart and simply feeding them two pounds of Simplete in each bucket. This way we don’t have to worry about mixing up supplement for each horse because two pounds of Simplete contains a full dose of Horse Guard ensuring all their vitamin and minerals needs are being met.

About Dr. Kelsey J. Nonella Ph.D., P.A.S.

Kelsey J. Nonella, Ph.D. is an equine nutritionist who was riding horses before she could walk. Her love for horses drives her to help educate people on what their horses’ needs in order to have happy, healthy horses. Kelsey went to Cal Poly receiving a Bachelor’s of Science in Animal Science and then onto West Texas A&M, where she got her Masters and eventually her Doctorates in Equine Science. At A&M, Dr. Nonella did extensive research on Selenium within horses. Click here to view her research. Kelsey’s colleagues have mentioned her as an one of the United States equine Selenium experts.